Synethesia
by fangirlwithak
Summary: Hermione sees books in colours. When she tries to explain this to her friends, however, it's simply written off as "a Hermione thing." Good thing Percy understands.


Disclaimer: I do not claim to own any of the characters, places, or various other artefacts in this story. They all belong to JK Rowling.

Hermione sees books in colours.

She'd never quite met somebody like herself and, for this, she is slightly glad. Other people have a hard enough time dealing with her personality and she isn't sure if she wants the chance to figure out how she would deal with somebody just like her. However, it has its drawbacks, too. For instance, just for once, she'd like to meet somebody who understands when she says, "I see books in colours."

For most, the interpretation is that she has a highly active imagination and can picture a story as the words spell it out. For others, they take her figurative language and interpret it literally. Harry and Ron, at first, assume this explanation as she tries to describe to them, one rainy and brooding afternoon during fifth year, her colour theory.

"Good books are a dark brown," she informs.

"You mean, the pages have turned that crusty yellow colour that looks like wet parchment left out to dry in the sun?" Ron wants to know. He's eyeing the tome she's got open in her lap with a certain disdain. The pages don't look to be a dark brown, so he's not quite sure what she means with her description.

"No. I mean, when I read a good book, I get this dark brown feeling," Hermione translates further. "It's a feeling of contentment that I associate with the colour brown. It leaves me feeling satisfied." Her tone has moved into the snippy 'know-it-all' attitude that the boys hated first year, were irritated with second, faced with mild exasperation third, ignored through most of fourth, and having now reached their fifth year, treat with eye-rolls. It's nice to know that, even with the whole school in chaos—the whole world, really—some things never change.

"I've heard of somebody feeling blue, I've heard of people green with envy, and I've heard of people seeing red, but I've never come across somebody feeling dark brown because of a book," Harry comments. He meets Hermione's exasperated look with a grin.

"You're warping what I'm saying, Harry," she chastises. "I didn't say I feel brown because of the book. I'm saying the book itself feels brown."

"And I'm saying you've gone a bit mental. You sure you haven't been studying too hard, Hermione?" Ron jokes. His grin falters slightly under the glare she sends him and his eyes dart to Harry, who's sitting on her other side. Harry shrugs and Ron's grin lights back up again.

Hermione gives up trying to explain to them what she means. They're fifteen-year-old boys; they're not going to understand anything farther than their dinner plates.

The next time the conversation comes up, she's trying to explain the phenomena to Ginny. It's the summer before seventh year and she knows, quite soon, it'll be some time before she gets to interact with another girl. She thinks that maybe explaining a book's colour to a fellow female might go better than the conversation she had with the boys.

She's wrong.

"I… sort of understand," Ginny, comments while matching up socks from a giant laundry basket. "Sort of like red represents passion or yellow is happiness?"

"Sort of, though those are simply colour associations." Hermione is elbow deep into the basket, fighting with a charmed school tie that has latched on to the basket's side—probably one of the twins' old ones, she reflects. "Red is 'passion' because of its association with hearts, and yellow is generally 'happiness' because of the sun and daisies and… I don't know. Gold. Daffodils. Puppies. For me, not all books are brown, only the good ones. I've come across pastel-feeling books, which are nearly a waste of parchment. And I've come across ones that seem like they're murky, winter colours, which leave me feeling anxious and unfulfilled."

"It sounds like you're associating colours with the feelings you get when you finish a book," Ginny muses. She helps pry Hermione's arm free from where the tie has re-latched on.

"Exactly!" Hermione exclaims. She's beaming. "Have you ever had that feeling?"

Ginny snorts. "No. Probably because I'm not mental." She doesn't expect Hermione to hurl the charmed tie at her head. Ginny spends the next fifteen minutes fighting for her life. Or, at least to liberate her hair from the mess of red and gold-striped fabric.

So, Hermione gives up on ever properly explaining this phenomenon to anybody. She's tired of the weird looks and odd interpretations she gets because of it. The next time it gets brought up in conversation, then, she's not the one to mention it; Ron is.

The Hog's Head is crammed full of people in a post-funeral party. George is damned to let his brother go out without a bang and Aberforth is starting to look like he may just toss out every Weasley from his bar. Hermione scans the growing crowd with a bit of amusement. For every blonde, brunette, and black-haired person, there's a ginger milling about as well. If Aberforth makes keen on his threat, he'll have his work cut out for him. Let alone prying George away.

Hermione is sitting at a dingy table in the centre of the commotion. She does not want to be here, where all the fireworks are going off in people's drinks and the conversation is booming like a million separate thunderstorms, yet she, Harry, and Ron seem to have been given seats of honour in the tumult. Every few minutes, the patrons will forget they're at the bar for a funeral and give out a drunken cheer for Harry's triumph, which is followed by even louder drunken cheers and more wet-start fireworks. Hermione wishes she could be like some of the regular Hog's Head patrons, sitting in the bar's corners versus the eye of the storm. She has her arms wrapped tight around her torso and she's doing her very best to ignore that many people—and many, many Weasleys—are invading her personal bubble.

Percy, too, looks out of place at the table of honour. Hermione's keen to note that he's got a permanent look of disbelief etched under his scowl. Apparently, his idea of a funeral reception is similar to hers, especially considering it is his brother's reception that he's attending. Hermione assumes he got the same lecture from George as the rest of the family, Hermione and Harry included, had received—"Do you really think Fred would want us bawling like Hufflepuffs? Or would he rather be remembered by the hangover we'll all sport the next day? 'Take your tears and stuff them.' That's what he'd say. And 'make sure to pack extra Filibuster's wet-starts.'"

Ron is well on his way to becoming drunk. Ron is well on his way of becoming well _past_ drunk. His face is bright red, only outdone by the flushed look on Harry's cheeks. Hermione just hopes that he doesn't get any funny ideas while he's pissed. From the way Lavendar Brown is perched on his lap, she doesn't think he will.

Weasleys, she is surprised to find out, are philosophical drunks. Ron, when his hands aren't wandering not so innocently on Lavendar, is loudly debating whatever draws his attention and with whomever has had as much to drink as he had. He and Harry are currently comparing the different shades of wood grain on the table under their drinks—Hermione _knows_ they're pissed because any sober person couldn't make out _anything_ from under the layer of grime—when Ron remembers Hermione's fascination with "brown" books.

"Books. Books are brown for Hermione," he hiccoughs, smacking the table for emphasis. "Ow. And not just the pages, too. Hermione feels colours." He turns to Percy, who is trying his best to ignore Ron's rambling. "Hermione says books are brown past the parchment if they're a good book. But if they aren't good books, the parchment is blue, but not really. I think she's a bit mental, but that's okay, because she thinks I'm nutters whenever I talk about Quidditch."

Hermione gives him a pitying look. "I don't pity you for the way you'll feel in the morning. I just hope your mum wakes you up at the crack of dawn to de-gnome the garden."

"Don't be a pillock, Ron. She doesn't really think the books are those colours." Hermione is grateful that Ginny isn't as far gone as Ron is. Seated to Harry's right, the younger girl is only slightly red-faced. "She associates the feelings she gets after reading a book with certain colours based off of contentment."

"Like being green with envy," Harry adds sagely. He nearly nods himself off of his stool and doesn't notice that a wet-start firework has entered his pint.

"No, not like being green with envy." Hermione is slightly pleased, though she'd never admit it, when he _does_ fall backwards after the firework explodes in his face. His crash to the floor is followed by a series of cheers from those around him and he becomes entangled in his own feet. Soon, Ron is pulled into the mess and knut-bets are made on how long it'll take the two to untangle. Hermione wants to put her head in her arms and wish the social anxiety all away but she's too conscious of how dirty the tables are, even after she cast _scourgify_.

"Good books are dark brown?"

Hermione turns to Percy, who still looks as uncomfortable as she feels. "Only if I feel content after reading them. Ones without that feeling are usually blue or green." She doesn't bother trying to explain because, chances are, he wouldn't understand anyway. She tells him this and almost merrily watches as he peevishly pushes his horn-rimmed glasses up his nose. He fixes her with a look that she doesn't recognize and that Harry and Ron _would_ have, had they been sober. It is a look she often gives them before she goes into an explanation of something they _should_ have known.

"I know exactly what you're talking about, actually, but I've never heard of it with books and colours." Hermione starts and gives Percy her full attention, feeling slightly affronted at the swotty tone in his voice. "Most people with synesthesia associate letters with particular colours or a certain sound with a taste."

"I'm sorry. You're insinuating I have what?" she asks. Harry and Ron would have been able to warn Percy about the clip in her voice if they weren't both floundering on the floor. As it is, Percy is on his own.

"Synesthesia is when one sensory pathway is involuntarily linked to that of another sensory pathway, connecting the two together in association. In other words, one sense is linked to another in the brain. When you experience the first, like reading a good book, it's linked to a second, like associating it to the colour you feel has that particular connotation to it," He is explaining it to her like she's some sort of dense bint, like she's back in first year and he's a fifth-year prefect laying down the ground rules. Harry and Ron could have pointed out it's a tone she uses quite often, but they're currently stumbling about in an imitation of a waltz. Lavender and Ginny are having trouble standing upright, they're laughing so hard. A camera flash goes off somewhere in the crowd. Hermione peevishly hopes it belongs to Rita Skeeter.

"I fully understand what I'm feeling, thank you very much. And you needn't talk to me like I'm some first year, freshly sorted into Hufflepuff. I'm just surprised that there's actually a name for it. Most people I've tried explaining it to just look at me funny," Hermione retorts.

Percy pushes his glasses back up his nose. "Most people you've tried explaining it to are Harry and Ron. I appreciate what Harry has done for the wizarding world and I love Ron as my brother, but…" he lets this trail off. Both of them turn to watch Ron drunkenly place a wet kiss on Harry's cheek. Molly is finally intervening into the scene, trying to force Harry and Ron away from their drinks and out of the pub. She is not achieving success but she has gained a crowd. Hermione isn't sure if they're cheering the drunken duo on or if they're rooting for Molly, but the volume is at an all-time high. She notices Percy is just as miserable with the growing roar as she is.

She points this out as well. "You're miserable in the centre of the fray. What are you doing here anyway?"

Percy purses his lips into a scowl. Harry and Ron are familiar with this look on Hermione—it is a look of unvoiced displeasure—but they're too busy getting kicked out of the Hog's Head to notice. "George says I deserve a place of honour," he admits.

"For coming back to fight in the final battle?" she wants to know.

"For making what, he says, is the first joke I've ever made in my life."

Hermione sympathizes with his look of defiance. She also sympathizes as Percy hurriedly dodges away from a drunken Charlie Weasley as the dragon tamer lumbers past. She does squeal when Charlie manages to goose her bum when she's not looking, though. She sends him off with a simple, yet painful, FurnunculusHex at his unmentionables. He'll have a fun time explaining to Molly in the morning about how he'd gotten it. If he remembers at all.

"Do you…" Hermione turns back to Percy and notices he's gnawing at his lower lip. She scowls at the habit, noting he'll probably rip up his skin that way. Harry and Ron would have told her she does the same exact thing if they weren't boisterously making their way through Hogsmeade as Molly ushers them past the pubs. "Would you perhaps like to go somewhere more quiet to talk about your synesthesia?" he offers. "I know some more about it but it's hard to have a conversation of any quality in here. Also, I don't think Charlie's learned his lesson. He's leering at you."

Hermione jumps off her stool, putting Percy between Charlie and herself. "Going somewhere else would be absolutely ideal," she consents, letting him act as a barrier between herself and the crowd. "I would absolutely love to. If we can get out of here, we can go there."

They make their way out of the Hog's Head without too many casualties. Percy has the wind knocked out of him by one of Lee Jordan's elbows and Hermione has to cast a bag-bogey hex on Charlie to keep him from molesting her posterior again. The two make their way through the Hogsmeade streets, faintly hearing the echoes of Harry and Ron singing, "God Rest Ye Merry Hippogriff" out of season.

"How did you even come across synesthesia?" Hermione wants to know.

Percy sniffs. Harry and Ron would have been able to point out that this is the response she has whenever she's asked a question she wants to be asked. However, they're too busy falling victim to Madame Rosmerta's Silencio Charm to be of any use. "Because I have something similar. Certain sound formations have particular tastes to me. The word 'Hogwarts,' for example, tastes like evergreen."

"Oh." There is a pause of silence where all that is heard is the faint sound of their footsteps. Then, "What does my name taste like?"

"I'm sorry?" he asks. He's been too busy paying attention to the girl next to him to listen to what she's saying.

"What does, 'Hermione' taste like to you?"

Percy is grateful for the darkness. It hides the blush that lights up his face. "Lemon meringue," he responds.

Hermione is silent again before she adds, "I like lemon meringue."

Percy has to grin at this. "I like it too." There is another companionable silence before it is his turn to ask a question. "What's the worst-collared book you've ever come across?"

Hermione is grateful for the darkness. It hides the blush that lights up her face. "Gilderoy Lockhart's _Magical Me_. It was periwinkle."

They fall back into silence. Hermione can't see Percy biting his lower lip in serious thought and Percy can't see that she's absent-mindedly mirroring the action. "I know…" she begins. She then remembers she's a Gryffindor and she spent nearly a year on the run from Death Eaters. She gathers up all her courage. "I know this quaint little coffee shop that runs on late hours. They serve the best lemon meringue," she propositions. "If you want, I can side-along apparate us there. We can get some pie, if you'd like. And we can talk about which words have the best taste."

"And maybe about which books have the best colour," Percy adds. "I'm interested to see what you can make about some of Bathilda Bagshot's literature."

Hermione thinks about it for a moment and decides that she faced Bellatrix Lestrange so she can face this next action. She slips a clammy hand into one of Percy's damp ones and, with a slight _pop_, the Hogsmeade streets are once again silent.

Hermione sees books in colours and she's just found out that Percy Weasley can taste words. She may have just met somebody like herself and, for this, she is slightly glad.


End file.
